Navy pulls YouTube video made by airman

updated 4:22 p.m. ET Aug. 19, 2007

SAN DIEGO - The Navy has removed a video from YouTube shot aboard the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan because it shows sailors using safety equipment inappropriately, a Navy spokesman said.

The video, titled "Women of CVN76: 'That Don't Impress Me Much,'" was shot by an airman and not sanctioned by the ship's commanders or the Navy. It includes fleeting shots of the door to the ship's nuclear power plant and of a sailor dancing while wearing a full-body radiation suit.

Both could alarm Navy nuclear-propulsion officials, who are sensitive about security. Under Pentagon rules, images of any part of a ship's nuclear plant cannot be shown to foreign nationals.

Nothing in the video — which was posted May 23 — compromised operational security, but officials were worried about the "lack of propriety" involving the safety equipment, said Lt. Cmdr. Charlie Brown, a spokesman for the San Diego-based Naval Air Forces command.

Navy commanders have counseled the airman who produced it, said Brown.

Set to a tune by country singer Shania Twain, the theme is that women serving aboard the Reagan can do the same jobs as men. Until 1994, the Pentagon barred women from serving on combat ships.

"The video was a lighthearted and positive depiction of the service of women officers and sailors aboard aircraft carriers and in Navy squadrons," Brown said.

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